


Taking Flight

by minazukihatta



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anyway she has it now, F/M, Fanboy Cisco, Girls in Costumes being BAMFs, Laurel has Superpowers, Return of the fishnets!, Why did the show take away her Canary Cry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-03-31 17:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3986284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minazukihatta/pseuds/minazukihatta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurel is a meta-human and goes out at night in a leotard and fishnets as a vigilante. Cisco is the S.T.A.R. Labs mechanical engineer she saves from bad guys in Gotham. </p><p>(In which Cisco and Black Canary like-love each other and are too oblivious to notice it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hey-o, boyo

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this version of Laurel Lance is quite different from Arrow's Laurel because a) she has some of her comic elements mixed in her (i.e. Canary Cry), b) I never quite agreed with how the show characterised her initially (Okay, I was pissed. This is DINAH LAUREL LANCE, writers of Arrow. Not Laurel Lance, damsel in distress! Did you ever read Gail Simone's run of Birds of Prey? Like ever?) and c) Blackvibe is awesome. 
> 
> Initially, this was going to be written as a one shot but seeing as how I'm so eager to post this, I'm gonna make this a multi-chap fic. 
> 
> Oh, and yeah, this is not Beta-read so feel free to point mistakes in the comments.

The bulky steel door of his cell opens and a devastatingly hot platinum blonde stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame and smirks in a way that makes Cisco’s heart skip a beat. Cisco takes in her attire: a form-fitting black leotard, a leather cropped jacket, gloves with yellow knuckles and stripes, combat boots and grease paint around her eyes…

_OH MY GOD—_

This has to be a dream, Cisco thinks, but he doesn’t want it to be because right now he’s being rescued by the _Black Canary_. He’s seen her on the internet, as nothing more than a urban myth, with several grainy, questionable videos showing a woman in scanty black spandex beating up criminals, rumours circulated by nerds who loved the concept of a sexy vigilante like Batman (not that he was sexy or anything. It didn’t mean that Cisco thought that Batman was ugly though; just that he thought he was terrifying and Cisco really should stop right now).

“You’re the Black Canary,” Cisco gasps, awestruck.

Her smirk widens. “Smart observation, boyo. Now how about we fly out of this cage?”

Cisco hasn’t been this relieved since the time he got his engineering degree with flying colours and this excited since he got his favourite issue of _Spider-Man_ signed by Stan Lee. He nods eagerly and follows her out the cell he is way too happy to leave.

This is all so worth it. Coming to the murder capital of the world, Gotham, despite his family’s pleas to stay in Central where the crime rate was considerably less, working with the great Lucius Fox in a partnership between Wayne Enterprises and S.T.A.R Labs and getting kidnapped to make a device for the bad guys that could level the city just to be saved by the Black Canary.

This is not a dream, Cisco now knows, it’s a total dream come true. Man, he is so going to rub this in everybody’s faces when he comes home.

“You know that machine the bad guys had you make?” the Black Canary asks as they walk calmly, Cisco sticking close to her—wow, she smells good—down the corridor in the facility.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think you can lead to me to it? It’s kind of why I’ve here—and to save you, of course,” she adds hastily when she sees the crestfallen look on Cisco’s face when he thinks he was a bonus. “My mission became a lot more important when I heard about a civilian held here against his will.”

“Sure! I can lead you to it. Just, um” he looks at the corridors around them, all leading to different paths and Cisco couldn’t help but feel a little daunted at the task he had taken on, “let me figure out where to go.” He spots the familiar green mildew on the wall on a nearby passageway and his memory sparks. “This way!”

He begins to half-walk/half-run down the passage, the Black Canary by his side _and relying on him_ (!), recalling the way back to the Earthshaker (okay, even though he was working under protest for the bad guys, he could not resist naming his baby). “My name’s Cisco. Cisco Ramon,” he tells her, because, hey, he’s a fan.

“I haven’t heard that name before,” she replies. “It’s unique.” They turn a corner and the end of the passage is blocked by a small squad of men in dark military gear carrying dangerous weapons running towards them. “Get behind me!”

Why not? Cisco wisely does as told, going back several paces as the Black Canary charges forwards, totally looking kickass when she flies in the air and dropkicks a thug in the face, spins back to drive her elbow into another thug’s throat that was dangerously close to punching her and then grabbing that guy to throw at other two assailants.  

Cisco can’t help the cheesy smile on his face. This is way better than watching the Avengers. Cisco watches the Black Canary take out every thug in about a minute with powerful kicks, well-placed punches and other martial art techniques he’s never seen before with a panther-like grace. The men were lying at her feet in the end, helpless and groaning in pain. _You deserve it. Grovel, assholes. Grovel!_ And he thought stuff like this only happened in comic books …

“Cisco,” Black Canary calls out his name urgently.

Cisco snaps out of his daze, picks his way through the evil minions and catches up to her. They run through the facility (an abandoned factory at the edge of Gotham, Black Canary informed him), Cisco leading her to the machine and Black Canary beating the _shit_ out of everybody that stands in their way. Cisco doesn’t have the physical finesse Black Canary does and he doubts he ever will. Let’s face it: he wasn’t exactly Vin Diesel, nor would he ever be.

Cisco tries really hard not to notice the curve of her legs, the smooth shape of her hips encased in leather and how her hair whips around her like a white flame.

It doesn’t work.

“Hey,” Cisco starts as they run down a darkly lit hall, their footsteps echoing around them . He’s panting now, and it’s the high he gets from running and working with the Black Canary that is keeping him going. “You know— _pant_ —if you ever worked with the Black Widow, it would be _awesome_!”

The Black Canary lets out a laugh—a melodic, lovely thing—and then is grabbing Cisco and bodily pulling him into a niche in the wall next to them just as a group of men armed with semi-automatics come around the corner and open fire at them. Cisco’s heart beats fast like a jackhammer in the cage of his delicate chest. If she hadn’t grabbed him in time, _several_ of those bullets would have hit him.

 _“¡Dios mío!”_ He gasps in shock. The memory of the head baddie—a man in a dark mask and an immaculate suit—ordering him to build the machine as he held a gun to Cisco’s head comes unbidden to his mind. Cisco remembers the sensation of his heart nearly exploding at he felt the cool metal on his forehead. He doesn’t want to die. He wants to see Caitlin again and Ronnie and his mom and even his stupid brother and—

“Hey,” the Black Canary cuts off his stream of thought and places a comforting warm hand on his shoulder. Cisco can hear the men advancing cautiously, heavy boots in a slow, ominous rhythm announcing each step they take. He’s pressed up against her and she’s looking down at him in a powerful reassuring way and has a small smile on his lips. “I’m gonna get you out. Just—” She takes his hands gently and places them over his ears. “—Keep these tight over your ears. Okay?”

“Okay,” he answers breathlessly.

The Black Canary steps out of the cramped niche, pulling her hands into fists and bending her knees as if bracing herself. The guns begin their spray of lead at the Black Canary. She opens her mouth in a scream; a loud, high-pitched scream that vibrates through the air like the mad wail of a banshee. Cisco instinctively pushes his hands harder over his ears as he hears it. It lasts a second or two, but it makes a lasting impression on Cisco’s hearing, leaving a sharp ring and the faint sound of birds tweeting.

Cisco, dazed, stumbles out of the recess in the wall. He sees the nasty men with guns (that are now out of their hands) on the ground, groaning and unconscious, and the holes in the far back wall where the bullets had been redirected. “That …” Cisco says, blinking several times to check if what he witnessed was real. “That was AMAZING!” He has to clap his hands over his mouth and dance giddily on the spot because of what’s he just seen.

“Wh-What?” Black Canary stutters, staring at Cisco as if the engineer had grown a second head.

“Can you be any awesome-er?” He asks. “Like seriously?”

She regains her composure and curves her lips in a way that has him blushing. “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”

“I love you.” _Wait. What the Hell did I just say?_  “I mean,” he hastily adds. “I love the way you beat up criminals.”

A laugh comes from the Black Canary. Crisis averted. Kinda. “Important mission going on,” she reminds him and Cisco drags himself from his awkward state of _‘What-the-Hell-Did-I-Say? Why-Did-I-Say-That? She’s-Going-To-Think-I’m-Weird-Now. Nice-Going-Dumb-Ass.’_ “Lead the way, Cisco.”

When they do reach the wide space holding the device, the screen of the behemoth of metal, wires and other complicated bits of tech is green and begins the 5-minute countdown to zero. The same guy who held a gun to his head is there, by the machine’s side, and turns back, his army of minions all covering his escape as he runs out the door.

 The Black Canary screams at all the thugs running towards them and blasts them back, but when she faces the device, Cisco’s baby, and opens her mouth, Cisco throws himself at her.

“No!” Cisco shouts. “You scream at that, you might set it off! I have to de-activate it!”

And as quick as that, the Black Canary turns the other way and sonic scream at a minion running to them. Yep, Cisco’s sure he won’t regain his hearing for a few days, what with being that close to the Black Canary’s cry. _Canary Cry_ , Cisco thinks _…_

The vigilante has a firm hold over his upper forearm as she helps cross over to the Earthshaker and all but throws him at that when she turns around to knock a guy coming up behind her with a clean, powerful kick to the neck. She whips out small ebony rods from her thigh sheaths that extend into full length police batons and whacks one of them straight into the face of another goon. Cisco stumbles up and gets his hands on the Earthshaker.

The screen says _1:59_ in black digital numbers. _Better get to work then._ He maps every part, every screw and every wire in his hands. Lucius Fox could probably make the Earthshaker more intricate, more _beautiful_ than Cisco ever could because that man is a genius. Why didn’t they grab him instead? Why get _‘One of S.T.A.R. Labs brightest minds’_ when they could get the ‘ _Genius of Wayne Enterprises’_? It didn’t make sense.

But Cisco remembers meeting the man, Lucius Fox, himself and how _good_ the man was. How he would marvel over tech and say he would only create great things to help people. Cisco was swept up by the man’s words and even more so by his work. Maybe the mastermind behind all this chose Cisco because Lucius would take that bullet to the head than build a WMD.

But he’s not Lucius Fox. He’s Cisco Ramon _, bitch_ , and if you didn’t think he wouldn’t put a sneaky little de-activation protocol in something as destructive as the Earthshaker, then think again!

Sweat gathers at his forehead and Cisco is barely stopping his hands from trembling as he tries to locate that special spot inside his machine (not as creepy as he intended it, ladies and gentlemen). Cisco glances up to the countdown and sees _0:23._ Behind him, the Black Canary is guarding him, going up guys against bigger than her and taking on more than one man. She isn’t using her Canary Cry—Man, that really sounds cool—so Cisco thinks there’s a recharge time to use her superpower.

Cisco reroutes a wire and he moves quickly if he wants the protocol to work so he locates another series of wires and switches them around until they are in a complicated order that makes sense only to him. Cisco prays to God, to Zeus, to anybody that’s listening really, and his heart is now beating so fast that Cisco thinks he might go into cardiac arrest and—

 _BEEP!_ The numbers freeze at _0:07_.

 _“Oh thank God!”_ he gasps out. He looks back to see Black Canary not behind him but when a grunt catches his attention, he pokes his head around the Earthshaker to witness her staggering backwards from the force of a bullet entering through her side. She slumps back against the Earthshaker and Cisco, without thinking, is by her side in an instant.

“Black Canary!” He crouches beside her. The platinum blonde holds a tentative hand to her shoulder and Cisco sees the thin trickle of blood on her hip. “Hey, you’re gonna be all right.”

The Black Canary lets out a shaky huff of breath. Her eyes are on him, Cisco can see brown flecked with green pupils, and flickers her gaze to the goon approaching, holding a pistol in his hand.

“Cisco,” Black canary bleats weakly, but she doesn’t continue when Cisco spreads his arms out, shielding the Canary. The goon looks amused by Cisco’s display of gallantry.  Cisco’s just a tech-head, nothing special, but the woman behind him is the Black Canary. She’s a _hero_ , she protects people and that makes her infinitely more important than he’ll ever be. Cisco ignores that fear boiling inside him and stares at the man approaching them straight in the eye as he strides towards them calmly.

His finger curls to pull the trigger and—

The gun is out of his hand. It clatters to the ground, along with something else: a yellow bat-shaped boomerang.

“Mind if I drop in?” an amused female voice asks, voice as clear as a bell. A blur of black and yellow drops from above and _Batgirl_ is personally beating up the goon. She spins, three batarangs flying from her hand and straight at some other thugs, knocking them out. Red hair—Cisco isn’t sure if it’s a wig—spills from out the behind of her cowl and her suit—oh, he would love to get his hands on her suit—is a streamlined black, with her bat insignia on her chest, the inside of her cape and her gloves and boots an attractive yellow.

Cisco thinks his metaphorical ovaries just exploded. Seriously, what incredibly lucky nerd gets saved by the _Black Canary_ and _Batgirl_ in the same night? The answer: Cisco Ramon.

Batgirl fires her grappling hook, soaring through the air and then recalling her hook to spread her cape in a bat-silhouette. Cisco needs to know who makes their costume. Seriously, that right there is a work of art. Batgirl then proceeds to beat up the remaining guys with an efficiency that’s indicative of how much of a rush she’s in.

Cisco strips off his shirt, pulls the Black Canary’s wound and presses it again her wound, not at all bothering the blood that stains the thin material. He hates it that shirt anyway. The bad guys gave it to him.

“Hey,” he calls out. “You’re gonna be all right.”

“I know,” she replies softly. “I’ve been through worse.”

Cisco dreads to know what that would entail.

“Canary!” Batgirl calls out, running up to the two of them. She stops, red lips thinning at the sight of the Black Canary’s wound. “It would seem that my invitation got lost in the mail.” Which, in Cisco’s opinion, is a sassy way of saying ‘ _Why didn’t you ask for my help?_ ’

“You had an exam,” Black Canary reasons.

“The fact that you know I have an exam, and therefore a life, is endearing.” Cisco can’t help the wry smile that appears on his face at Batgirl’s cheek. “I sent a tip to the commissioner. The authorities will be here soon.” She bends down and picks Black Canary up with Cisco’s help, throwing the blonde’s arm around her shoulder. Batgirl’s eyes, green through the cowl, are on him. “Thanks, Mr Ramon, for your help, but it seems we’ll have to keep the shirt. Evidence and all that.”

“How do you know my name?” Cisco is so honoured that she even knows his name.

“She’s Batgirl,” the Black Canary groans. “Bats know everything. B.G. we really should get out of here.”

“Okay, okay. My bike’s outside.” Batgirl pulls out her grappling hook gun and aims it towards the sizable hole in the ceiling. The Black Canary gives Cisco one last look, with that unfairly sexy smirk on her lips. Even though she’s pale and looks as though she’s suffering a hangover, she’s, well, gorgeous.

“I’ll see ya around, Cisco.”

Batgirl’s grapple reaches the hole in the ceiling and the two vigilante shoot upwards, almost like they were flying out into the sunset. When the girls’ dark figures disappear from sight that was when Cisco allows himself to swoon, letting out a feminine sigh and fist-pumping and jumping on the spot. He still can’t believe that tonight happened.

And that is how the police found a shirtless guy dancing like a maniac and whooping crazily five minutes later.


	2. More than Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco realizes that the Black Canary isn't just a hero; she's also a hero who still carries the scars of her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I haven't updated in a while. I had mid-year exams to worry about. This is long to make up for my absence. 
> 
> This is un-Beta'd. If you catch any typos, be sure to put it in the comments.

Two weeks after Cisco is back in Central City and smothered by his friends and family because of the whole kidnapping ordeal and basically gushing about rescued by his knights in Kevlar and leather armour, he gets mugged.

It’s not as terrifying as being held captive in Gotham but it definitely sucks since his muggers—three of them, bigger and stronger than him—drag him into a dirty alley, punches him in a way that leaves him dazed, kicks him in the gut and takes his wallet and other precious items, like his blueprints, away from his person. It’s also the best mugging he’s ever had since a random stranger comes out of nowhere and saves him.

An elbow drives into the throat of the mugger about to punch Cisco in the face and then grabs the mugger, throwing him straight into his friend, knocking them both into the ground. When the third tries to flee, his saviour sprints after him like a bloood hound, jumps up on a nearby dumpster and launches herself straight into the air to tackle him to the ground. His saviour punches the man in the face, takes Cisco’s stolen effects from him, and leaves him on the ground to grovel.

Cisco now has a good look at his hero.

Black leather leotard, fishnet stockings, grease paint—

“Black Canary!” he chirps. The vigilante smiles—Cisco swears it’s sunshine on a rainy day—and holds out his stuff in her gloved hand. “Thanks so much,” he says as takes back his effects, crouches on the grimy ground to pick up his blueprints and pack them back into his discarded bag.

“Listen up, boys!” The Black Canary barks out in a powerful, totally hot voice. “I see you guys causing trouble again, I will call your parents and _personally_ deliver you to the nearest police precinct. Do I make myself clear?”

A responding groan from all of them is her answer. The cocky curve of the Black Canary’s lips is a clear sign of her satisfaction. Cisco scrutinizes the nearest mugger and sees that he’s actually just a kid—a _teenager_. He supposes that it’s a small mercy that the Black Canary is letting them go. (Oh God, he got his ass kicked by a bunch of kids.)

“Come along,” she tells Cisco, confidently striding deeper into the alley. “I’ll walk you home.”

“Walk me—” Cisco notices the Black Canary beginning to darken out of sight, and the shadows of the alleys and back streets ahead would have swallowed her entirely if not for her shining wig. Cisco rushed after her, tripping at the first step and then curving around the mugger on the ground and catching up to her.

The Black Canary is silent. Not frostily silent or awkwardly silent (like Cisco is; the latter, not the former that is) but companionably silent. Cisco blazes with a dozen questions in his head, freaks out because a superhero has saved him yet again, and wonders what he could do to break the silence.

“Soooo,” he speaks out at last, “Whatcha doin’ here?”

“Hmm?” She tips her head up and turns her face to him. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. Could you say that again?”

“You, um … Central City is a long way away from Gotham.” Cisco nervously scratches the back of his neck. “Usually, you’re around that city and not Central.” He knows that by researching the Black Canary into the farthest, deepest recesses of the internet. He has probably watched over a thousand obscure CCTV videos about the Canary and read even more questionable recounts of meeting or seeing the Black Canary. Cisco has an unhealthy obsession. Awesome, but unhealthy.

“Birds are known to migrate every now and then,” she says cryptically. “As nice as some of my vigilante friends in Gotham are, the city can be enough to drive anybody insane.”

Cisco can understand that. The streets weren’t as nice as Central’s; they were covered in dirt and any attempt at public sanitation failed. People kept to themselves, their faces were gaunt and their eyes darted around nervously. Cisco read about the sort of maniacs bred in the city. In his opinion, the worst was the Joker. Cisco can never get that news article written about one of the Joker’s horrifying exploits out of his head.

The Black Canary stretches her arms and makes a cross with her upper limbs. “So I came out here to get some sun.” A pause. “And to see how you were doing.”

The words catch by surprise. “Really?”

“Getting kidnapped can be traumatic. I know first-hand.”

“You do?” Well, _duh_ , Cisco berates himself. Even superheroes got the drop on them from time to time.

“There was this one time …” she starts. “I was doing a patrol around the East End in Gotham and out of nowhere the Joker’s goons came out of nowhere. I was putting up a good fight but one of those assholes gassed me. When I came to, I was tied up in a warehouse at the docks along with Catwoman.”

“Wait, Catwoman?”

“Yeah, her.” She tucks a stray strand of white hair behind her ear. “Apparently Joker thought Batman couldn’t love him as long as he loved me and Catwoman. Me and batman aren’t even like that.” She grimaced as if the memory left a bad taste in her mouth. “I know, the man’s nuts. I was … really …” She licks her lips and bites nervously down on her bottom lip. The Black Canary sighs in exhaustion. “I thought I was going to die.”

Cisco stops and looks at the Black Canary. No, not _the_ Black Canary, just Black Canary. He sees the way her fists clenched, ready for battle, the tense line of her shoulders and the way her teeth were bared, clamped down on her bottom lip. Cisco thinks if she bites down any harder, the skin there would break.

Cisco doesn’t see her as some fearless hero who could save the day and beat bad guys with her fists right now. He sees a human being, capable of being hurt and feeling the same things as everybody else; a human being that goes at night risking her life to protect other people.

“Your wound,” Cisco breaks Black Canary out of her reverie. His hand, without thinking, goes to her side where it was shot two weeks prior. His brain catches up to his actions for him to stop his hand and hover hesitantly over the wound. “What happened after Batgirl got you out of there?”

They start walking again and Cisco greedily sticks a little closer than necessary to her side. So close that he can feel the warmth radiated off her gloves.

“Batgirl took me to a … friend she knew,” Black Canary explains. “And that person fixed me up and told me to take it easy. Even gave me a few cookies.”

“Do you still have stitches?”

“I’ve been known to heal quick. Probably ‘cause of the superpower thing. So I now have a pretty scar on my hip. I’d show it to you but that means I would have to undress.”

Cisco flushes and lets out a snort. Not the nice kind, rather more of the pig-snort kind. Why? Why? _Why_ did he have to snort like that? Now Black Canary is going to think he’s … weird and that would suck _so_ much since he’s her number one fan.

“That … That was embarrassing,” he says. “Please forget the sound I made three seconds ago.”

“Only if you don’t tell anybody what I said about my encounter with the Joker.”

“Deal.”

“We’re here,” Black Canary announces, stopping at the mouth of an alley. Cisco spots his apartment block across the street. It’s decent, totally inconspicuous and cheap enough for him to earn with his salary.

Then Cisco realizes that Black Canary knows an alternative route to his apartment. “How’d you know where I live?” he asks.  

Black Canary’s eyes widens, like a naughty child who was caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and opens her mouth, not saying anything for a while until she settles for, “I, um, I may have escorting you home from afar.” Cisco stares at her. “And I asked Batgirl. She’s good with the detective thing.”

Is Cisco gaping? Yeah, he is. Black Canary knows where he _lives_. “I’m not sure if that’s creepy or awesome.”

“Me neither,” she agrees. “I don’t usually do this sort of thing.”

“What? Stalk nerds?”

“I wouldn’t say stalk nerds as so much as I’m _keeping a watchful eye_.”

“Oh, sure you are,” he retorts, drawling out the words. Her eyes light up in amusement, making those hazel eyes so hard to look away from. “So I’m guessing you’ll keep on ‘ _keeping a watchful eye’_.” He laid emphasis on the quote.

“If it’s one thing I’ve learnt from the Bats in Gotham, it’s that paranoia keeps you breathing.”

And before Cisco can ask what that means, the female vigilante turns on her heel and heads back into the alley.

 

 

* * *

 

 

From that point on, Cisco is walked back to his apartment by Black Canary. She appears out of nowhere on his way home, makes some passing (positive) comment about his clothes, her mood, the types of crooks she encountered that night or the weather, and then lead Cisco through a shortcut through the dark alleys and backstreets of Central City to his apartment complex. Strangely, he feels safer walking home with Canary in the scary alleys than alone on the well-lit streets of Central City.

They talk about stuff: Cisco’s day, Canary’s night so far, some of her adventures overseas (!), Cisco’s machines (and those that were a work-in-progress), the assholes and bitches they knew in their life, hobbies, latest TV shows and, amazingly, comics. A few times a mugger jumps out of nowhere, but Black Canary quickly deals with that. Cisco is all too happy to watch her kick ass.

The walk home is something he looks forwards to now after his night. There are times he works overtimes and is forced to stay longer at work to work on a device that needs finishing touches or he gets so into planning sometimes he stays at S.T.A.R Labs until the crack of dawn. Still, Black Canary shows up and when the engineer isn’t up for talking (or walking at all), she just stays silent and accompanies him back to his cramped apartment.

“Who’s the girl?” Caitlin inquires over lunch at some coffee store across the street from their workplace.

Cisco finishes off his bite of pizza. “What girl?”

“You have that moony look on your face when you’re crushing over some girl.”

Is the fact that he’s actually has a crush on Black Canary that noticeable? “I do?”

“Yes, you do,” she explains. “You’ve been smiling all day. _Dreamily_. The way teenage girls do over boys in cartoons. You’re chirpier than normal, even for your standards. I haven’t seen you like this ever since for that girl at Jitters.”

“Um.” Cisco licks his lips. “She’s …”

“Already dating somebody?”

“More like,” Cisco tries to find the right words. “Out of my league.”

Caitlin makes this face that says she isn’t surprised. Cisco can’t blame her. He has this habit of falling for unattainable women. Women who are visually stunning, contains a certain _je ne sais quoi_ quality to them, a charm that draws people in like moths to a flame and had a certain spark of intelligence. Cisco fell for the artsy Tracy in college, determined Jenna after he got his degree, his strong former neighbour Louise and the barista Darla.

His type also liked to break his heart. Tracy was a lesbian, Jenna was married to her work, Louise was heading back for her third tour in Afghanistan, Darla had a husband—you get the point.

Strong, sexy, smart women who were of his reach. Black Canary ticked all of those boxes.

Why couldn’t he like nice, geeky girls like himself and be happy and secure in that sort of relationship? (At least he would he have a chance at bringing a girl back to his Mamá’s house and protect her from Dante’s treachery.)

“You like adventures,” Caitlin tells him.

“I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. I think if you dated somebody _within_ your league, you’d get bored. You don’t want a tender flame, you want a passionate fire. You can’t stand ordinary without the ‘extra’ put in front of it.”

“You make me sound like some kind of hopeless romantic waiting for Romeo,” Cisco points out.

Caitlin raises an eyebrow. “And you aren’t?”

“You know, I think you might know me better than I know myself.”

“I actually do.”

Cisco shakes his head and goes back to eating his pizza. He has absolutely _no_ chance with Canary. If this was a stereotypical American high school movie, Cisco would obviously be the nerd and Black Canary would be the bad-ass biker chic. Cisco thinks that the role of head cheerleader for B.C. would be totally unsuitable because a) she is not a bitch, b) Cisco doesn’t know whether or not she has a clique and c) she’s a superhero.

Later that day, he walks home by himself. Black Canary doesn’t show. At all. He’s doesn’t mugged; he has a normal, plain, _boring_ walk home. He’s … disappointed. Not at Black Canary for noting showing up. Rather for the silence around him as he heads to his apartment.

She was bound not to turn up for their evening walks eventually. She was a vigilante. A masked criminal, if you asked the police, who takes the law into her own hands and does not care if people get hurt. Cisco disagrees greatly with that view. She goes out each night so people don’t get hurt. Heck, she got _shot_ trying to save Gotham from a disaster he was responsible for making.

_(“Cisco,” Black Canary said firmly to him when he said he was responsible for endangering all those innocent people in Gotham. “It’s not your fault. They threatened to kill you. It’s only human you would want to survive.”_

_“But—”_

_Her hands came up to the sides of his head and she forced him to look her straight into her lovely eyes. Her grease paint was smudged around her eyes and the white strands of her wig gave her skin an ethereal glow._

_“Cisco, those people did not die. They’re alive and with their families.”_ Only because you were there to save them, _Cisco didn’t say. “It’s not going to help anybody if you keep beating yourself up about it. You wanna make up for it? Create something that’s going to help people and not hurt them.”)_

The kidnapping showed him what he was capable of making. If he was some greedy, money-hungry asshole, he would probably get into the weapons industry and create some diabolical weapon worse than the Atomic Bomb. But no. Cisco doesn’t want to hurt people. He wants to help people.

So from the day Black Canary told him not to hate himself for building the Earthshaker, he \ created this one rule when it came to inventing: _invent for good, not for evil._ It was kind of like ‘ _with great power comes great responsibility’_ and Spider-Man. Cisco is going to be responsible with what he was working on. No WMDs, only stuff for the good of the world.

When he gets back to his apartment, he turns on the T.V. and—

 _“This is Laura DeQuincy coming to you live from the Central City University hostage situation,”_ the reporter on the screen immediately tells him. Behind her, Cisco sees the backdrop of CCU, a white Victorian style behemoth in the black night. It looks so … quiet. Cisco never would have guessed that there was a hostage situation going on. Cisco watches on with interest. _“At 10:30”_ a few minutes before Cisco got off work _“police received calls of a man going into the university, armed with a bomb vest, and holding an entire lecture hall of college students and professor hostage. No ransom has been issued yet. The bomber is now confirmed as Dr Isaac Malakin, a chemistry professor who works here at CCU_. _It is not—”_

A shrill scream cuts the reporter off, a high pitch ring on Cisco’s TV that has him wincing, but is an ear-splitting screech on the other end. The cameraman wobbles, forcing the camera to tilt down before he stands up straight just in time to capture the fiery explosion going off several feet off the roof of the university.

He knows that sound. It’s captivated him ever since he first heard it: the Canary Cry.

Cisco knows what happened. He doesn’t need to hear the reporter say it or at least make presumptions. Black Canary was there. A few minutes later, a flurry of people escape out the door. They look fine, if not terrified.

Cisco gets ready for bed, changing out of his clothes into comfortable T-Shirt and keeping his boxers. He’s only able to get about 5 minutes of shut-eye on his bed before he hears a _thump_ from his kitchen. Cisco gets up, grabs the baseball bat—an apartment-warming gift from his mother—under his bed and sneaks out the door. He actually really hopes it’s nothing because if there was a burglar here, he (or she) would kick Cisco’s ass and take his bat as well as his other valuables.

Not that Cisco has anything worth stealing other than his DVD box sets, his comics and other assorted nerd paraphernalia and his money. His apartment isn’t bad, but it isn’t good. It’s _decent,_ that’s the word. His bathroom is also the toilet, the nondescript white toilet right next to the bathtub with the probably-sixty-years-old shower head hanging over it. Cisco’s couch separates the kitchen from the living room, both of which is filled with clutter he hasn’t bothered to clear up. And his bedroom isn’t any better, barely big enough to fit his bed and closet.

So really, his apartment is so shit that nobody really wants anything from here.

Cisco jumps into the kitchen and—

The bat gets knocked out of his hand and there’s somebody pressing him against the wall. The smell of perfume—flowery, really nice—fill his nostrils, a pleasant aroma compared to the sweaty stink gathering on his hands and the back of his neck. Black Canary is right of him, forearm jammed against his throat, the other hand in a fist and her teeth bared in an attractive lioness-like snarl.

“P-Please don’t— _gack—_ punch me…” he chokes out.

Black Canary drops her snarl and removes her arm, dropping Cisco to the floor. Cisco coughs, massaging his sore throat.

“I am so, so _sorry_ ,” Black Canary apologises, holding her gloved hands up. “I swear I thought you were some—” she pauses “—burglar.”

“Oh, and you’re not?” It’s a little rude, however, it’s eleven-thirty, he’s been working late and he’s tired.

“Good point. I’m very suspicious in this get-up.” Black Canary gestures to her revealing black costume. She nervously fumbles with her hands and she’s biting her lip. God, she’s so hot when she does that. However, Cisco knows she only does that when she’s upset or frustrated about something.

“Hey, is everything all right?” he questions her gently.

She sighs, goes to lean against the wall and slides down to the linoleum floor, knees pulled up to her chest.  She brings up a hand to rub against her face, and for a moment, with how her wig covers he face, he thinks she’s going to cry. Then her fingers laces with her wig, pulling it off her skull. Brown tresses tumble down, all the way to her shoulders.

Cisco carefully lowers himself to the floor, to Black Canary’s level. Hesitantly, he places a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Canary?”

“I saw my mom today,” her voice cracks at the first syllable of ‘mom’. She lifts her face up. Her eyes are closed, squeezed shut, and her curves of her mouth are curved downwards. “She was one of the hostages at the university.” An intake of breath to calm herself. “It’s the first time I’ve seen her in years.”

Cisco processes this titbit of information and hazards a question: “How long?”

Her mournful hazel eyes meet his and she says, “Since I was sixteen.”


End file.
